EPC QR Code Generator

What is an EPC QR Code?

An EPC QR Code is a standard QR Code that encodes payment instructions in the format defined by the European Payments Council (EPC) under guideline EPC069-12, commonly known by its German name Girocode. Scanning it with a SEPA-region banking app pre-fills a euro credit transfer — recipient IBAN, name, amount and reference — so the payer just confirms and sends, without typing account numbers by hand.

Like the Swiss QR Code and ZATCA QR Code, an EPC QR Code is a plain QR Code (typically Model 2, error correction level M) carrying a specific plain-text data structure. What makes it usable for payment is that European banking apps recognize the EPC069-12 field order and parse it automatically.

How the EPC069-12 payload is structured

The EPC QR Code payload is a sequence of newline-separated fields in a fixed order:

• Service tag — the literal string "BCD".
• Version — "001" or "002" of the EPC069-12 specification.
• Character set — a numeric code for the text encoding used (commonly UTF-8).
• Identification — the literal string "SCT" (SEPA Credit Transfer).
• BIC — the recipient bank's BIC/SWIFT code (optional under version 2 for domestic SEPA transfers).
• Beneficiary name — the account holder's name, up to 70 characters.
• IBAN — the recipient's International Bank Account Number.
• Amount — in euros, prefixed with "EUR", or left blank for the payer to enter.
• Purpose, remittance reference/text, and an optional information field — used to identify what the payment is for, either a structured creditor reference or free text.

Because SEPA only covers euro-denominated transfers within the SEPA zone, the currency field is always EUR — an EPC QR Code cannot encode other currencies.

Technical specifications

An EPC QR Code is a standard ISO/IEC 18004 QR Code, typically Model 2 at error correction level M, encoding plain UTF-8 (or the more restrictive ISO 8859-1) text under version 001 or 002 of the European Payments Council's EPC069-12 guideline. Field lengths are bounded — beneficiary name up to 70 characters, remittance reference up to 35 characters — and the practical overall message length is limited by how much text a given banking app is willing to parse, commonly cited around 300 characters. There is no separate checksum on the EPC069-12 text itself; validation happens at the IBAN level (IBAN includes its own two-digit check via the MOD 97-10 algorithm) and again when the receiving bank processes the transfer.

Where EPC QR Codes are used

EPC QR Codes (Girocode) are common on:

• Invoices issued by German, Austrian and other eurozone businesses that want frictionless bank-transfer payment.
• Donation appeals from European charities and NGOs, where scanning pre-fills the donation amount and reference.
• Membership dues and subscription renewal notices from clubs and associations.
• Point-of-sale and restaurant bill payment in markets where instant SEPA transfer is preferred over card payment.

Adoption is strongest in Germany and Austria, where Girocode is widely supported by nearly every major bank's mobile app, but the format works with any SEPA-region bank that implements EPC069-12 scanning.

How to generate an EPC QR Code in Barcode Mint

To build a valid EPC QR Code:

• Select EPC QR Code from the barcode type list to open the EPC069-12 content builder.
• Enter the beneficiary name, IBAN, and BIC (if you want to include it), then the amount in EUR and an optional remittance reference or free-text note.
• Barcode Mint assembles these into the correctly ordered EPC069-12 text block and encodes it as a QR Code — you don't need to format the raw payload manually.
• Export as SVG for placement in an invoice template, or PNG for quick sharing on a payment request page or printed flyer.
• Use Bulk CSV → ZIP/PDF to generate a distinct EPC QR Code per invoice or donor row, pulling IBAN, amount and reference from a billing or fundraising export.
• Or call the REST API at /barcode?type=epcqrcode&data=... to generate payment QR codes programmatically as part of an invoicing workflow.

Test a sample code with at least one major SEPA banking app before rolling it out broadly — while EPC069-12 is a published standard, individual banks vary slightly in which optional fields (like BIC) they require versus ignore.

Print and scan best practices

Print the EPC QR Code in solid black on a white background with a clear quiet zone, and size it generously enough for a phone camera to focus at typical invoice-reading distance — a small code crammed into a corner of an A4 invoice is a common cause of failed scans. Keep the encoded text under the roughly 300-character practical limit some banking apps enforce by using short, clear remittance text rather than long free-form notes. Avoid non-Latin characters and unusual punctuation in the beneficiary name and reference fields, since some banking apps' EPC069-12 parsers are stricter about character encoding than the QR Code standard itself.

EPC QR Code vs related payment codes

The EPC QR Code (Girocode) plays the same structural role as the Swiss QR Code — both are plain-text QR Codes that pre-fill a bank transfer — but they target different payment rails: EPC069-12 works only for euro-denominated SEPA credit transfers, while the Swiss QR Code's SPC format supports Swiss franc and euro payments through Switzerland's own IBAN/QR-IBAN and reference system, and the two are not cross-compatible. Compared with a MeCard or vCard QR Code, which simply save contact information, an EPC QR Code carries payment-execution data that a banking app actively parses and acts on, so accuracy in the IBAN and amount fields matters far more than in a typical informational QR Code.

Common uses

• Eurozone business invoices with scan-to-pay bank transfer
• Charity and NGO donation appeals with pre-filled amounts
• Membership dues and subscription renewal notices
• Point-of-sale SEPA transfer payment in Germany and Austria
• Automated payment QR generation from invoicing software

Frequently asked questions

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